My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(106)

Dad fingers the steering wheel nervously.

“Why can’t it be your mother’s fault? Perhaps we don’t visit you at Christmas because Mum doesn’t like Lisette.”

“Is that it?”

Dad looks uncomfortable. He’s a terrible liar. “No. Everyone likes Lisette. I’m well aware of it.” He says it as people do when considering an extremely irritating character trait in the person they live with.

Elsa looks at him for a long time before she asks:

“Is that why Lisette loves you? Because you are very ingoing?”

Dad smiles.

“I don’t know why she loves me, if I’m to be quite honest.”

“Do you love her?”

“Incredibly,” he says without any hesitation.

But then he immediately looks quite hesitant again.

“Are you going to ask why Mum and I stopped loving each other?”

“I was going to ask why you started.”

“Was our marriage so terrible, in your view?”

Elsa shrugs.

“I mean, you’re very different, that’s all. She doesn’t like Apple, that sort of thing. And you kind of don’t like Star Wars.”

“There are plenty of people who don’t like Star Wars.”

“Dad, there’s NO ONE who doesn’t like Star Wars except you!”

Dad seems unwilling to take issue with this.

“Lisette and I are also very different,” he points out.

“Does she like Star Wars?”

“I have to admit I’ve never asked.”

“How can you NOT have asked her that?!”

“We’re different in other ways. I’m almost sure about that.”

“So why are you together, then?”

“Because we accept each other as we are, perhaps.”

“And you and Mum tried to change each other?”

He leans over and kisses her forehead.

“I worry about how wise you are sometimes, darling.”

Elsa blinks intensely. Takes a deep breath. Gathers her energy and whispers: “Those texts from Mum you got on the last day of school before the Christmas holiday. About not having to pick me up? I wrote them. I lied, so I could deliver one of Granny’s letters—”

“I knew,” he interrupts.

Elsa squints suspiciously at him. He smiles.

“The grammar was too perfect. I knew right away.”

It’s still snowing. It’s one of those magical winters when it never seems to end. After Audi has stopped outside Mum’s house, Elsa turns to Dad very seriously.

“I want to stay with you and Lisette more often than every other weekend. Even if you don’t want that.”

“You . . . my darling . . . you can stay with us as often as you like!” Dad stammers, quite overwhelmed.

“No. Only every other weekend. And I get that it’s because I’m different and it upsets your ‘family harmony.’ But Mum is having Halfie now. And actually Mum can’t do everything all the time because no one’s perfect all the time. Not even Mum!”

“Where . . . ‘family harmony’ . . . where did you get that from?”

“I read things.”

“We didn’t want to take you away from the house,” he whispers.

“Because you didn’t want to take me away from Mum?”

“Because none of us wanted to take you away from your granny.”

The last words between them dissipate into the air and leave nothing behind. The snowflakes are falling so densely against Audi’s windshield that the world in front of them seems to have disappeared. Elsa holds Dad’s hand. Dad holds hers even tighter.

“It’s hard for a parent to accept that you can’t protect your child from everything.”

“It’s hard for a child to accept it too,” says Elsa, and pats him on the cheek. He holds on to her fingers.

“I’m an ambivalent person. I know this makes me a bad father. I’ve always worried that my life should be in better order before you start living with us for longer periods. I thought it was for your sake. That’s what parents often do, I think, we persuade ourselves we’re doing everything for the sake of the child. It’s too painful to us to admit that our children won’t wait to grow up because their parents are busy with other things. . . .”

Elsa’s forehead rests in the palm of his hand when she whispers: “You don’t need to be a perfect dad, Dad. But you have to be my dad. And you can’t let Mum be more of a parent than you just because she happens to be a superhero.”

Dad buries his nose in her hair.

“We just didn’t want you to become one of those children who have two homes but feel like a visitor in both,” he says.

“Where’s that from?” Elsa snorts.

“We read things.”

“As smart people go, you and Mum are really insanely unsmart sometimes,” Elsa says, and then smiles. “But don’t worry about how it’ll be when you’re living with me, Dad. I promise we can make some things really boring!”

Dad nods and tries not to look puzzled when Elsa tells him they’re going to celebrate her birthday at his and Lisette’s house, because Mum and George and Halfie are still at the hospital. And Dad tries not to look stressed when Elsa says that she has already called Lisette and arranged everything. But he looks much calmer when Elsa tells him he can make the invitation cards. Because Dad immediately starts thinking about suitable fonts, and fonts have a very calming effect on Dad.